1).In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Laxmi Shiyani

At the start, when we was given our coursework brief, we

had decided that we wanted to create a music video

based around the pop genre. Firstly because pop is of our

interest and therefore as we listen to the music and watch

the music videos we know vaguely the codes and

conventions.

• We decided to have a female as our pop artist as we feel that females

dominate music that are of mainstream pop music present. As pop music

is very popular, due to it being vastly mainstream, we felt that it would be

easier for us to research and access existing music videos and get a

clear idea on characteristics in which pop music videos must consist of.

We decided to have our artist be a mainstream pop artist from looking at

existing pop singers and being influenced by them, such as Katy Perry,

Ellie Goulding, Pixie Lott and Taylor Swift. We wanted to follow all the

conventions of pop music so that the genre is amplified clearly to theaudience.

We began our music video project by research. We researched into

existing Pop artists and their music videos so that we can get an idea of

what our music video will need to consist of to illustrate the pop genre. By

using Goodwin’s theory of codes and conventions of a music video I began

analysing a few pop music videos to get a real good understanding. From

my research I found that the pop artists costume and make-up are very

glamorous, bright and colourful along with the clothing being revealing.

Female artists in pop music are very voyeuristic and are presented in a

seductive way for them to be able to attract audience of all sex. The main

focus in pop music videos are the micro elements so that the music video

really captivates the audience.

• Taking into consideration of the codes and conventions of popmusic, we started to construct our artist by creating an artistprofile. The female artists in which inspired our artist wereEllie Goulding, Taylor Swift and Pixie Lott. We came uponnaming our artist ‘Isabel Beau’ as it is a very unique, elegantand soft name in which reflects upon the type of person she isto the audience. Her name is also different from the otheralternative pop artists making her stand out. Our targetaudience was decided, by the whole group, of being femalesaged between 12-25.

• The persona of our artist being talented, sweet and down to earthwas reflected in our music video due to her innocence andsweetness shown. The background of our artist was that she bulliedat school along with being betrayed by her dad and love. This isreally amplified and expressed in our music video due to it beingreally personal, emotional and expressive through feelings. This istherefore consistent with our album ‘Uncovered’ which is songsbased around her personal life.

• To make sure that our artist was identified clearly to theaudience as a selling point, we took lots of shots of just theartist so that the audience can see the narrative and artistperformance being of two separate areas. By having a varietyof cinematography shots of Isabel Beau, we followed ‘thedemands of the record label’. Our location for the artist to doher performance was in a drama room to connote and expressher performance in a dramatic way. This location was quickand efficient due to it being in school meaning it was easier toset up and start filming. As it is the key to make sure that thevisuals relate to the music and lyrics, when filming ournarrative and our artist we had to make sure that the actionsthey were doing were relevant to the lyrics as well as going insync to the beat and pace of the song. As towards the end thesong starts to get fast-paced, upbeat and aggressive wecreated short takes and had lots of cuts.

• After doing many re-shoots of our artists performance footage, wedecided to have the drama room be our primary location due to allthe performances, ballet dancing and Isabel Beau singing, arefilmed there. We decided to in cooperate an actor and twoactresses so that a role of being parents is fulfilled as well as acharacter playing young Isabel Beau too. The drama room wasperfect for our performance scenes due to it having dark walls andstriking stage lights giving more of a professional performance vibe.It was difficult sometimes filming there due to it being of aclassroom environment and therefore having whiteboards, chairsand posters in the background. However, I feel that it worked reallywell and was successful.

• Our other location was at a house. Here the scenes where theparents are arguing and young Isabel is upset is very realistic due tothe iconography of the location being in a house. Shooting at one ofour group members house was very efficient as it meant that wehad no time limit giving us time to set up and plan the scenes more.

• The whole concept of our music video is to tell the story of ourartists life of her childhood. Our music video expresses thisthrough a narrative which is about young Isabel Beau escapingfrom her house problems, of her parents arguing, through balletdancing. As the narrative is shown throughout the music video,there are many cuts in between to reflect on the artist singingpresent expressing her emotions ;by having these cuts made ourmusic video engaging and intriguing.

• To continue engaging the audience, we changed our artistsoutfits and make-up slightly too by making her lips more bolderand clothing at a dark tone towards the end to express theaggressive emotion. As fashion is a major part in pop musicvideos we made sure that the clothes worn were trendy andfashionable to make it conventional.

• We constantly referred to Goodwin’s analysis when researching intomusic videos that linked with our song and when planning ourstoryboards. Due to the ‘record label demand’ we filmed lots ofclose-up shots of the artist alone singing to the song so that she isclearly seen as the selling point. To establish the relationshipbetween our music video and lyrics we made sure that the scenesfilmed were relevant . When filming the ballet dancing we madesue that the movements were in sync with the beat of the musicreally giving a great impact. We had a reference to notion of lookingof one of the parents eyes through the car mirror showing theexpressions on the eyes.

• As our music video was created in a linear creative way, beingmainstream, it linked into Adorno and Horkiemer’s theory ofcultural items(artists) all being produced in a similar or the sameway; in which our artist was.

• Overall, I think that our music video was successful due to itamplifying the pop genre and not contradicting the codes andconventions of pop but following it. We reflect the hegemonicvalues and convention really well by going along withGoodwin’s analysis of music videos as well as pop genre.